lessons learned from Iran-Iraq war

1. Iran- Iraq War Lessons not
Learned… or Culture Rules

2. Bottom Line Up Front
• Doctrine, the guiding principles by which an army
supports the national objectives will, in
execution, always be conditioned by the national
culture…and military subculture
– Thinkers and scholars may come up with imaginative
doctrinal shifts but the actual changes in how we fight
evolve very slowly.
– Nuclear strategy, active defense, air-land battle, and
now counterinsurgency are all in my background. But
in the artillery it has always been…., shoot move and
communicate.

3. In Perspective. The Saga of the m-
16/m-4
• Critical of Iraqi Army from a cultural
standpoint
• Necessary to put in perspective of our own
• Worst standard small arms weapon in the
hands of any army. Why do we keep?
– Bureaucratic stagnation/ inertia
– Cultural and military hubris
– Denial

4. Historical background
• Individual Iraqi soldiers have always distinguished themselves
as resolute soldiers but Iraq army history is an Inglorious one.
• British created. Optimism by the “founder” of the army Jafar
al Askari
• Yezidi massacre of 1933. Co Bakr Sidqi became national hero
• 1941 war against Brits
• 1948 Palestine war… the “shakoo makoo” army
• 1967 war failed to get there in time
• 1973 war varying opinions, Uneven at best
• Endless wars against Kurds. unable to subdue
• 1980- 1988 Iran Iraq war

5. The Prussians of the Arab World
• The Profession of Death. Militarization of society
• The Bedouin warlike ethos acclaimed by Saddam as the most
important factor
• Generally armies learn more from losing than winning easy
wars….. so with 6 decades of almost continual warfare why
did the Iran-Iraq war end as a virtual stalemate with Iraq hurt
more than Iran? Had they learned nothing?

6. Historical
• Historical chronicles from the time of the great
Arab conquests depicted the Persians as
effeminate and weak warriors, a view carefully
cultivated by the Saddam regime applying the
term Majus or fire worshippers to the Iranians.
• Saddam emphasized the “Mesopotamian Arab”
culture as far superior to the Persian, especially
the Bedouin warrior mentality.
• A belief that the Arab heritage of the Khuzistan
Arabs would welcome his invasion.

7. Problems in Unit Leadership
• Mistrust of Non Commissioned Officer Corps
• Lack of solidarity between officer and Enlisted
• Mistreatment of soldiers
• Wholesale turnover in Officer corps with each
Government change.
• Lack of Officer education. Faculty turnover.
• Mishmash of Soviet and Western doctrine
• Soldier training time eaten up by political
indoctrination.

8. Security and Paranoia
• Went to war with many top military leaders
unaware of impending conflict
• Throughout the war many subordinate leaders
were kept in the dark as to plans of near future
• Subordinate commanders were given only
sketchy orders, maintaining security, but
requiring maximum initiative on the part of the
unit commanders, a task they were culturally
unable to fulfill.
• Had few Farsi translators because they were not
trusted,

9. Planning
• Virtually none at the beginning of the war
• “Our troops just lined upon the border and
told to drive into Iran. They had an objective
but no idea how to get there or what they
were doing, or how their mission fit the plan,
or who would be supporting them.”
• War viewed as a tribal conflict, not modern
coordination of military forces.
• Information as power

10. Decision-making and Responsibility
• Notoriously absent at all levels: a fear of
failure. “Fear, not Soviet methods explains the
ponderously inflexible and ever so timid
behavior of Iraqi field commanders, a
continuous feature of the Iraqi performance.”
• Micro-managing by Saddam

11. Politization of the Military
• The divide and rule policies employed by all Arab
rulers was perfected by Saddam. It was in keeping
with the general Arab Rulers’ outlook that their
military is the greatest threat to his regime.
• Saddam exploited sectarian, religious, regional
and the urbanite rural divides to maintain control
• The Ba’ath political system, modeled on the
Soviet system, created an atmosphere wherein
officers “were in a domestic prison without
walls.”

12. Extrinsic/Intrinsic Factors
• The installation of organizational/unit pride vs.
the motivation of external rewards.
• Saddam used the targhib/tarhib system
exclusively with his rewards and punishment
administered from the top
• Once the ability of the regime to administer
this system became apparent, the military fell
apart.

13. Culture Changes: Lessons learned?
• The war against ISIS. Presages a change?
• U.S training making a permanent difference?
• How do Western trainers impose or cultivate
cultural changes in the Iraqi way of war?
• My politically incorrect view, which also runs
against the grain of the more recent military
views as well, is that only a very long term
hermetically sealed training environment will
produce the anticipated results…and that once
the seal is broken, those results erode rapidly,

14. Closing Thought
• Peoples fight within their cultural constraints
shaped by history, geographical and social
environment.
• The trick is to devise your strategy, doctrine,
way of war, etc. based on your culture not the
prevalent trends. Accentuate what you do
best and avoid accepting alien or unrealistic
ways of war.